E is for Egretta

Little Egret (Egretta garzetta)

If I was typing this just a few years ago, the little egret wouldn't have featured on this blog, yet it is now one of my favourite British birds. As any birder will know, the Little Egret is a newcomer to the UK within living memory, and one that has been welcomed with open arms. Once a rare visitor from the Mediterranean, they rapidly spread North under their own power during the nineties and noughties and are now common as pristine white muck in our wetlands. They are the bird which has shown the largest increase in the UK in the past decade or so ¹. Despite being so commonplace now, they still bring a touch of the exotic.

They are undoubtedly very beautiful birds. They are dainty compared with grey herons Ardea cinerea , with pure white plumage, delicate trailing display feathers and gracile proportions giving them an angelic appearance. However, they still portray the dinosaurian nature of all herons as soon as they open their beak!

The reason why egrets suddenly chose to recolonise Britain isn't wholly understood. Climate change leading to milder winters, and greater protection under the EC birds directive allowing them to spread across Europe have both been proposed.  They've certainly fit in. This may partly be due to their separate habits to grey herons (our only other common heron species).  Egrets pluck small fish and aquatic invertebrates from the water. They won’t be seen gulping down a prize carp or small mammal. This more common diet may explain why they are often seen in company, though it doesn't stop them squabbling. They are also more specialist in habitats, preferring to fish in shallow water with a sandy or silty bed, in standing water, large rivers, estuaries and coasts. The reason for this is their feeding behaviour. A strutting or flying little egret shows its bright yellow feet on the end of black legs. They shuffle their flashy toes along the bottom to startle hidden prey into fleeing and showing itself.  They will also chase after more obvious prey, such as shoals of fish fry, in short bursts of gangly-legged jogs.

Whatever the reason for the little egret’s re-invasion of Britain after such a long absence, it seems to have set a trend among the heron family. It’s cousins, the Great Egret Ardea alba * is being seen increasingly frequently in Britain (Including by me and some friends in Ham Wall, Somerset in 2012 and 2013, and magnificent birds they are too!), along with the Cattle Egret Bubulculus ibis . The purple heron Ardea purpurea, night heron Nycticorax nycticorax and little bittern Ixobrychus minutes have bred here. Fortunately, our other long-standing resident, the Bittern Botauris stellaris, is still increasing. Obviously this is exciting for birders, even those by now bored of the little egret.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the little egret is new to our waters, so what’s all this talk of ‘recolonising’ after ‘absence’ then? 

This is because it was once as common here as it is today. It was only during the Medieval Period in the 1600s that little egrets became extinct from Britain. Like other big birds that Britain lost during this time, such as  the Bittern, Common crane Grus grus  and Great bustard Otis tarda, they were eaten into oblivion at prestigious banquets.  A banquet to celebrate the enthronement of George Neville as Archbishop of York at Cawood Castle in 1465 included 1,000 egrets²! Climate change during the little ‘Little Ice Age’ (a cold period during Mediaeval times), also did not help this bird at the Northern edge of its range.

Egrets continued to be hunted in Europe, not for eating, but for that most sickening business of decorating humans with bits of animal. Their beautiful display plumes, and even whole skins, were highly prized for ladies hat-making. So highly prized that egret plumes became more valuable than gold, fetching about £875 in modern terms per ounce or 28 grams. Each egret only produced around 1 gram ³.Though another graceful wetland bird, the avocet has fame as the RSPB’s symbol, egrets were the reason the charity was started in the first place in 1889 when women rightly protested against this brutal and unnecessary practice. It was providential that the first major influx of egrets to the UK was in the RSPB’s Centenary year⁴.

This little white heron has acquired a contradictory status in our islands, being both an exotic newcomer to birders and a re-established native with a place in human and conservation history for natural historians.  I think I speak for us all when I say we are glad to have them back!

In desperation to compile enough information, this is the first article I've written where I had to use Wikipedia (God help us all!), and for similar reasons is also the longest article so far.

^*Though, as recently recognised, not a particularly close cousin. The term “egret” just refers to a white heron, it doesn’t refer to a particular related group.  Interestingly, the species name “garzetta” translates literally into “a little white heron” in Italian.

References

1- Louise Grey. (2013). Little Egret arrives in Britain thanks to global warming. The Telegraph Online. Available from:  www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/6872249/Little-egret-arrives-in-Britain-thanks-to-global-warming.html

2-Stubbs, F. J. (1910). The Egret in Britain. Zoologist 14 (4): 310–311.

3- Robert A Robinson. (2013)Profiles of birds occurring in Britain and Ireland-Little Egret Egretta garzetta  [Linnaeus, 1766]. Available from: http://blx1.bto.org/birdfacts/results/bob1190.htm

4-Southend RSPB. (2013) Little Egrets in Southend . Available from: http://www.southendrspb.co.uk/egrets.htm